


A Sentinel on the Alaskan Riviera

by windfallswest



Category: Northern Exposure, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Pheromones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 20:16:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17946392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: Blair and Jim track a smuggler up to Arrowhead County, Alaska.





	A Sentinel on the Alaskan Riviera

**Author's Note:**

> I decided my hundredth work on AO3 ought to be emblematic, so here is a crack crossover for two dead fandoms that's been sitting on my hard drive for almost ten years.
> 
> Look, all I have to say is, if it's canon that a character in one fandom is susceptible to pheromones and also canon that a character in another fandom hyper-produces them, crossover porn is pretty much obligatory, is it not? (And yes, this does mean that Jack Harkness has to visit Cascade.) A surprisingly easy AU, except for fudging the dates.

After extensive consultation with their map, Blair and Jim decided that they had, finally, arrived in Cicely, Alaska in the borough of Arrowhead County. Hot on the trail of Paul Squiffy, smuggler, murderer, and general slime. The search radius was several hundred square miles, at least. Jim's record as a Ranger and their record as a team, along with the area's, ah, paucity of human resources police or otherwise, had persuaded the state of Alaska to let them leapfrog jurisdictions.

"Well, whoever this Holling is, hopefully he'll help us narrow it down," Blair said as Jim parked the truck in front of a brick wall painted with improbable palm trees. They climbed out.

Blair took a breath of crisp Alaskan air and stretched. Four hours crammed in the weird-smelling rental truck since the last town, and more than he liked to think of before that, had Jim looking a little worn around the edges. It had been a long day already.

"Well, I guess this must be the place."

When he didn't get an answer, Blair turned back to see Jim staring off into space.

"Jim? Jim...?"

Blair waved his arm in front of Jim's face.

"Huh? Yeah, Chief. Right." Jim shook himself and started walking.

Blair glanced over where Jim'd been staring. A scruffy fellow in denim was disappearing into a glass storefront whose lettering proclaimed it the local radio station, probably the one they'd been listening to all morning.

 

The Brick, where sources informed them they could locate Holling Vincoeur, tracker and expert on the local terrain, turned out to be a very authentic-looking, slightly smoky bar. Holling himself was a practical, old-fashioned sort who had a few ideas on where to start, given the reports of the bush-pilot who'd first sighted what was most likely Squiffy's crash site.

"Maggie said she saw the wreck just below this ridge-line," Holling said, tapping a spot on the faded map, wearing through at the creases, that he'd spread across the scuffed bar. "Now, that's on a straight heading between this airfield, here, and the Canadian border. I'll bet you anything you care to name he's still following that course."

Jim looked up and met Holling's measuring eyes. Holling had promptly swiped the bar clean with a cloth he'd then draped casually over his shoulder, reaching for the map without even having to look as soon as Blair had introduced them. Jim, hooking his heels on a rung of the barstool, had had to dial down his senses, both bar and owner were so full of input. Holling leaned now on one elbow, gaze crossing Jim's face like callipers.

"Here you go, two caribou burgers," said a cheerful voice. They hadn't actually ordered anything, but Jim took a big bite of his before Blair could give him the health food lecture again.

The young woman straightened but didn't move out of Holling's personal space. Jim was a little nonplussed; now that he was smelling them together, he could smell them all over each other.

"These your cops, babe?" the girl asked.

"Detective Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg," Holling introduced them. "And this is Shelly, my wife."

He said it half shyly, half with pride, and the look he gave Shelly was all heat. Shelly beamed it back at him before grinning at Jim and Blair. Jim could almost feel Blair shrugging it off, the hippie.

"Cool. You guys want anything to drink? We've got beer and coke and everything."

 

Blair bit his lip, watching Jim processing the May-December thing going on with their guide and his waitress. Guy needed to loosen up.

Beer came, and Jim and Holling started talking search patterns. Blair tuned it out a little and took in the ambience. Moose heads and pool tables. Anthropologically very interesting, but not really his element. Blair had the uncomfortable sort of feeling that most of the regulars here were the sort of guys who used underfed liberal geeks like him for basketballs.

The door opened. Looking up, Blair revised his earlier guys to everyone, because that was a singularly imposing woman. She stumped up to the bar, taking off her gloves, and gave Holling a short nod.

"Officer Barbara Semanski," she introduced herself. "I assume you must be Ellison and Sandburg."

Blair watched her and Jim sizing each other up and had to bite his lip again to suppress a smirk. Well, so much for a clear playing field.

"Nice to meet you."

Blair wiped his hand on a napkin and held it out. Semanski ignored it.

"I'd like to state at the outset that I don't like civilians involved in my investigations."

Jim, who had only craned his neck over his shoulder, looked back down at his plate and stuffed some more fries in his mouth. "You been out to the crash site yet?"

"My orders were to wait for you," Semanski said stiffly.

Jim hummed an nodded. Blair rolled his eyes at his moose-burger; this show of indifference might be demonstrating Jim's dominance, but it wasn't gaining him any points with Semanski. Then again, Semanski clearly didn't want them here in the first place: tough luck.

 

It was after noon already, with another long drive between them and Squiffy's probable trail, so once all the grunting was done, they planned on starting tomorrow, early. The rest of the day was spent on preparation, supplies, and plotting out search grids, in addition to interviewing the bush pilot and meeting the natives. Blair was enthusiastic. Jim was slightly charmed despite himself.

Besides a few laconic locals, they were introduced to the local doctor, some poor fellow from New York who'd been stranded here and who pounced on Blair—conversationally speaking, of course—like a starving man on a loaf of pumpernickel. Blair seemed more interested in a comparative discourse on tribal fibre crafting with Joel's receptionist.

The locals were a surprisingly eclectic bunch, in fact. Although Holling's buxom young lady had raised Jim's eyebrows, she seemed more than capable of holding her own. Double for the bush pilot, who'd been inconveniently unavailable to fly them in. Joel paused in his decanting of Blair long enough to give Jim's singeing a commiseratory glance.

The DJ, who'd been spouting Blair-style philosophy and pushing decent music during their drive, popped in to grab dinner. He took it back to the station. Jim maybe noticed how much extra attention the women gave him, but he was mostly paying an inordinate amount of attention to the variegation of his brown hair and the texture of his denim and skin. His teeth were even and white when he smiled.

A middle-aged man came stamping in, and Jim could hear the military in his footsteps before he even came through the door. He made a valiant attempt to lure Semanski away, the local talent having been talking with Holling at the bar while they tried to get a straight answer out of Ms. O'Connell. Meeting defeat on that front, he interrogated Jim briefly. Jim nodded politely and sirred him and he wandered off again after being old-soldier-typically interminable.

All day, Jim was restless and distracted; he'd put it down to impatience to be underway, but he had trouble focussing on their plans as well. Twice, a swift kick under the table from Sandburg was all that kept him from zoning.

Or maybe impatient was all it was, because his head cleared some as they made their way into the woods the next morning. They put up for the night at the only hotel in the area, a bread and breakfast run by a couple of, um, gentlemen. That didn't bother Jim, but the earnest efforts to be helpful, an earmark of B&B owners Jim recalled from his marriage, frankly got old fast.

He was still distracted enough to draw wrath from Semanski. It was almost noon the next day before they found anything. The anything told them which direction Squiffy had gone, and also that they might as well go back to town before pursuing him any further.

Jim took a long walk when they got back, figure out what the hell was up with his head. He struck out into the woods, away from any human impact on his senses. He caught a glimpse of a lake occasionally through the trees but steered clear of the shore, where he could smell a single point of wood burning, charcoal, meat.

He couldn't say why he didn't smell the man before he heard him. Despite his resolution, he'd drifted back toward the lake. The fire was a mile or three behind him.

It took him a beat too long to respond when Stevens said hi. But the night was in its prime, its darkest hours, when it was used to having the least company, and most things in those hours might pass unremarked.

They fell in beside one another. Stevens talked about the mystery of the forest at night. Blairian taste for melodrama, throwing around words like primordial, atavistic, instinctual. Jim thought about how clearly he could hear everything for miles around and how easy it was to pick out the distinguishing features of Stevens' face. Straight nose, good cheekbones, stubbled chin.

Jim kissed him. Pushed him up against a tree and kissed him, the lake water just barely visible gleaming through the trees in the moonlight. It was good. Tasted like charcoal and possibly caribou.

Then he took a step back, rubbed at the unaccustomed sensation of stubble-scraped skin, and decided it would be a good time to freak the fuck out. From the expression on Stevens' face——he was having similar thoughts. There was a _why don't we—I'll just, uh..._ moment, and then they both split off in different directions, into the forest.

Jim most emphatically did _not_ sleep well the rest of the night. In fact, he went back to his room, had a seriously disturbing dream, and proceeded to wake Sandburg up.

"Sandburg," he hissed, thankful that at least they were in the habit of swapping room keys: as past events had frequently established, weird Sentinel crises usually popped up at inconvenient hours. "Chief!"

"Too many watermelons?"

Jim buried his face in his hands. He was a grown man, an Army Ranger and a police detective. He was not going to either cry or break down in a fit of hysterical giggling. _Breathe._

"Chief," he tried again, shaking Blair's shoulder.

"Tiiturumaviit!" Blair gasped and sat up blinking in the darkness. "Jim?" he asked uncertainly.

Jim slumped wearily to the floor. "Chief we got a problem."

"What is it? Is Squiffy—?"

"No, no, nothing like that."

"Well, what is it, man?"

"I, uh, I had a dream."

"Like a Sentinel dream?"

"Not—not really. I mean, _I_ felt a little bit like—but it was more of a..." Jim trailed off in helpless embarrassment.

Blair blinked at him blearily, his brain slowly grinding into gear. "Wait, it was _sexual_? Jim, you're a big boy; I'm sure you've had that kind of dream before."

"It was different," Jim managed, choking on the rest of it. He watched Blair reach to turn the lamp on, then think better of it. For still being a neo-hippie space cadet, Blair was surprisingly perceptive around people. _Which is one of the reasons why you're here._ "It was a guy."

Blair was one hundred per cent not asleep now. "I'm guessing by your state of freak-out that this hasn't happened before."

Jim hesitated. "Well, I sort of kissed him earlier tonight." He winced a little. "That sort of thing ever happen to you?"

"Sorry man, can't say it has. I mean, no one's an absolute one on the Kinsey scale, but that particular problem has never, uh, come up for me."

Jim glared. Blair opened his mouth to maybe apologise, but was overcome with a wave of tittering. Jim snatched one of the pillows from the bed and hit him in the face with it.

Blair spread his hands helplessly and continued to unsuccessfully choke back laughter. After a minute, Jim reluctantly joined him. He sat back against the bed and closed his eyes.

"God. What the fuck is happening to me? I haven't felt like this since—shit."

"Since Laura?"

Jim craned his neck around to squint up at Blair. "How did you know?"

"You said there's a particular guy, around here?"

"Yeah," Jim admitted sourly.

"You kiss him or he kiss you?"

"What does it matter?"

" _Jim._ "

"I kissed him, all right?"

"Mind telling me who?" Blair pressed.

Jim fixed his eyes firmly on the wall in front of him. "The radio guy, Stevens."

"Oh, man, I knew it! This makes a lot more sense now."

"Would you mind please telling me what you're talking about?"

"Pheromones. When I was talking to Joel, you know, Joel Fleischman, earlier, he was telling me how every couple years Stevens starts putting out like superstrength pheromones or something. Women're all over him."

"And this is happening _now_? To _me_?" Jim frowned. "Wait, doesn't that mean I'm not really...?"

Blair scratched his head. "I dunno. Remember that case last year when we ended up having to bust through the oh-so-subtly-named Hound Hole? You get worked up then?"

"No, of course not. Besides, there was that thing with the serial killer lurking in the shadows somewhere."

"Yeah, but we were experiencing a degree of peril when Laura was around, too, and that didn't stop you wanting to—"

"What's your point, Chief?"

"If all it takes is a large enough pheromone dump to get you horny, regardless of whose pheromones they are, you should have been buzzed out of your mind at the gay bar. There had to be a hundred times more pheromones in there than any one person is capable of putting out. Now, a certain amount of attraction is biological. This suggests that something in the chemical composition of Stevens' pheromones is compatible with your particular system."

"Are you saying I'd be _attracted_ to Stevens even if he wasn't—doing whatever he's doing?"

"Well, maybe not consciously, especially considering the highly repressive nature of your WASP-y-military-police background."

"That's easy for you to say, flower child."

"Hey, I have been drunk and high enough in my life that if I were going to start jumping guys, it would've happened by now."

" _Blair._ "

"Just weed, Ellison! Jeez."

Jim sighed. "So what do we do about it?"

"I can explain the theory to you, but friendship only goes so far. I'm not going to hold your hand while you—"

" _Blair!_ " Jim smacked him with the pillow again. Sniggering bastard. " _This isn't funny._ "

"No, actually, I'm thinking that was a pretty good joke. Look, don't worry about it. The further away we get, the fewer pheromones in the air, the less you'll be effected. Once we n—find Squiffy, it's back to Cascade where we can pretend none of this ever happened. I'll even promise never to bring it up again. All right?"

"Okay." Jim was somewhat mollified. "Uh, thanks Chief."

"What's a Guide for? Now go back to sleep. And Jim?"

"Yeah, Chief?"

"Sweet dreams."

Blair's laughter continued through the pillow Jim socked at his head before retreating across the hall to his own room. Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, the further he was from Chris, the better for him. Good thing they were leaving in the morning. Hopefully Squiffy would be stupid and they'd catch him, or he'd flee to Canada or something.

Morning did not come nearly soon enough. Jim went jogging as soon as the sun came up a little before five a.m. One of the proprietors had an early breakfast waiting for them by the time Jim was out of the shower. Jim really did try not to act awkward.

Maurice spotted him, of course. Officer Semanski had not deigned to allow him to drive her in, but their vehicles had arrived in close succession and the scent was well-scrubbed but present. Maurice swaggered over to where Jim was making up for lack of sleep in number of eggs. Sandburg wasn't out yet to yell at him for congesting his arteries with bacon. Food-wise, this trip was turning out all right, at least.

Appearances to the contrary, Maurice was not completely unobservant. He looked at Jim being uncomfortable, looked up at one of the smiling proprietors.

"They make me a little uncomfortable, too."

"Wha—hum, who? I'm not uncomfortable."

"You don't have to lie to me, son. It's the military; it's in your red American blood. Bothered me, like I said, but that Chris Stevens told me a few things. I sleep a little easier now."

"So Chris is—?'

"Aw, hell no. Chris is as straight as an arrow." And Maurice told him about the pheromone thing Joel had already half-bragged, half-moaned to Blair about. Women throwing themselves at him. Thronging around his trailer. Right. Jim tried not to dwell on the comparison as Maurice made a ham-fisted effort to regurgitate some complex sociological concept and wished Blair would show up already to forbid his bacon and be thrown into the conversational line of fire.

The next step was far enough away Jim escaped the cloud of Chris' uber-pheromones, unless maybe there were some clinging to their persons. Maybe there were; Jim certainly still felt clearer out here than he usually did. Peru was already roasting this time of year. Man, did he not miss that jungle. Really, he didn't; he'd had something there, a strong sort of feeling that had made him reluctant to get on that chopper out. It wasn't the same as _liking_ it.

Here, though. Jim completely understood why Holling had spent most of his life out here. Jim liked his Wonderburger and his satellite dish, but geez. He looked through the evergreen canopy up the thickly forested slope of a mountain and held back the impulse to leave the truck behind and climb.

Holling was in the other truck with Semanski, leading the way. Jim drove with the windows down, and Blair's babble was mercifully either about Inuit tribal quirks or the case. Progress happened. Holling kept them from getting completely lost. A couple high-intensity days passed, involving no sleep, lots of guns, and high-speed cross-country chases.  
Alaska was _amazing_. Semanski was a suspicious mountain of inconvenience, but at least she was a good shot. She hauled Squiffy in for hospitalisation while Jim and Blair hauled their sorry asses back to Cicely as a jumping-off point for some final sniffing-out of assorted unaccounted-for evidence.

Jim found himself drawn to the radio station's door. God, he could feel it, now he knew what he was looking for. He'd felt his heart-rate kick up as soon as they got back: the entire town was permeated.

Looking up from his control board, Stevens caught sight of him. Kind of hard to hide from somebody in a glass booth. Jim was dirty, exhausted, and obviously zoned stupid because when Stevens' expression evened out and he waved Jim in, Jim went.

"All right now, here's something for my friend Heather Fallingsky, a little Neil Armstrong. Smooth music for such a rough voice. Good luck with the little ones, Heather, and remember: they're only two for a year."

Stevens stood up as _I'm Beginning to See the Light_ started to play. "Heya, Detective Ellison. You all right?"

Jim ducked his head. "Yeah, yeah. Just, uh, busy couple of days." Jim wasn't sure who was drifting closer to whom, just that he was having trouble keeping his train of thought on track.

"The investigation," Stevens breathed. It reminded Jim to inhale, which was a bad idea because he was already far too aroused. He'd come here to...to...well, it hadn't been to get into a necking session, anyway.

"I just wanted to." Jim paused, did not look at Stevens' mouth even if it was right there in his line of sight. His eyes, those were safer, though not by much. "About the other night."

"Right. Right, that. That was...strange. Not that I minded. Really. Just that I—"

"I don't—that is, _I_ don't, I'm not—I'm sorry. I'm gonna...go."

And Jim inched out from between Stevens and the wall, trying to touch as little as possible. Louis Armstrong's voice followed him all the way out of town.

Jim had sent Blair on ahead to the B&B in the rental truck. He didn't mind the walk, despite his exhaustion. In fact, he stopped in just long enough to change clothes, then jogged out again and jumped in the lake. It was a big lake, and the spot he chose had no signs of recent human habitation.

Jim swam for a while naked in the cold, clear water. The results were mixed: he felt a lot more centred and relaxed, like he might eventually be able to sleep, but the pheromonal hotspot where he assumed Stevens lived was only a few miles away. Jim wondered if Stevens was there, or if the pheromones lingered even when he left. He wondered what sort of dreams he'd have tonight.

Stevens tracked Jim down. Kind of. He waited near the B&B later that night for Jim to come back. It was still light out, although Jim had noticed chasing Squiffy that darkness had narrowed down to only a few hours at this latitude.

"Hey," Jim said from a couple yards away.

"Hi." Stevens was perched on a boulder. He ran a hand nervously over his hair. "Um, yeah, stay back there, good. I just wanted to apologise—not that it's actually my fault. I mean, it's not a conscious decision or anything, but I get that you're probably confused right now. I'm confused myself. I've never—"

Jim watched Stevens get up and start pacing. He probably ought to say something, but he was having trouble focussing on anything other than the sound of Stevens' voice and the way he moved. It was smell, not sound that told Jim he was frustrated, confused, aroused.

Jim closed his eyes and exhaled. "You too. I can smell it."

"See, now, that's all this is. Doc tells me there's a logical, scientific reason for all this. My scent makes you think—"

"I smell better than other people."

"Yeah, you do," Stevens agreed. He was somehow, again, close enough to tell. "You know, this is a really bad idea: you're a cop, I'm a felon. You're straight, I'm straight. It's all just chemical."

This conversation was going nowhere. On Jim's part, it was a good part not being able to think past the desire to jump Stevens again, and rather more conclusively.

Or, well, act past the desire to jump Stevens again. Granted, Stevens didn't seem to be objecting. Man knew how to kiss. Man, definitely man: big hands, scratchy proto-beard. Hard, muscled thigh between Jim's and it felt good, exactly right.

Stevens' hard-on rubbing against his hip was failing to freak him out, and the man was making all the right noises. He wasn't pulling away; but then again, neither was Jim.

Jim hauled himself far enough out of the kiss to look Stevens in the eye. He couldn't quite manage to still his wandering hands, however.

"Really?" he asked Stevens' seriously dilated pupils, which was about as much coherence as he could muster with pheromones washing over him in waves, tugging at his libido.

"I'm up for it if you are," Stevens said, a little breathless but probably operating on hormonally sounder judgement. "Just a little experimentation."

Stevens' lips drifted in on Jim's. They seemed to swallow his world. Jim lost himself in his senses, the overpowering urge to physical action probably the only thing that kept him from zoning. They were in public, it was _broad daylight_ , and this might not be much of a road right here, but it _was_ a—

Stevens pushed him up against the boulder and he kind of didn't care anymore. Jim grabbed his face and kept on kissing. When Stevens opened his mouth, he dove in, as eager to taste.

The rock was still warm behind him, but Stevens on top of him was much warmer. To Jim, everyone really did taste different. Flesh, saliva, bone, toothpaste, Holling's chilli, a rich, dark beer. The mouth was full of textures: smooth, slick, ridged, and rough. Sensation flooded him until he almost had to dial down the feel of thin cotton under his hands except he couldn't, fingers scraping his side, denim on his thighs, pressure on his cock, which would have been oversensitive at this point even if he weren't a Sentinel on overdrive.

"God," Stevens sighed reverently. He flattened his palms and ran them up Jim's chest under his shirt.

Jim stripped it off. Then for good measure, he stripped Stevens' off and tackled him to the ground.

He ground down against Stevens' thigh for one long, satisfying moment, the pressure and scratch of denim on his bare skin just harsh enough to cool him down a little. Jim's fingers fumbled at first Stevens' fly and then his own; and all he could think for a crazy, hysterical moment was how the hell he'd ever found Laura's clit in this condition.

Stevens wasn't wearing underwear either (Jim hadn't bothered with it just to go out to the lake; he'd sort of gotten used to not wearing any in Peru, and a slightly shamefaced part of him had never fully reverted). It was the easiest thing in the world to line their cocks up and just thrust and let his mouth explore the terrain.

Jim liked the way Stevens held onto his head, not quite scratching or massaging, not guiding even, just like he liked the feel of short hair brushing his palms. Left free to wander, Jim nipped his way up his heaving chest. He was briefly, weirdly, side-tracked by the uncontrollable urge to smell Stevens' armpit. Jim licked sweat off his bicep and moved back down to try a nipple. Women always liked it, of course, and Jim's were sensitive, maybe because of the Sentinel thing—they were tight right now, and little electrified surges jolted from them to his cock every time one rubbed against Stevens' flat chest.

Stevens responded too. Well, Stevens responded to the biting, to Jim's teeth pinching any of his skin, nipple, neck, or ear, while Jim's hands locked themselves on his hips and Stevens scraped blunt nails over his scalp in reaction.

Their mouths found each other again for wet, messy kisses. Stevens might have been trying to say something, but all Jim heard was his smooth voice like it was humming through his skin, up the back of his neck and down his sides where Stevens' hands drifted now.

Stevens' hips were rutting with his, producing the most brain-scrambling sensation Jim had ever experienced. He groaned instead of resisting when Stevens rolled them, a slow, strangely sensuous tumble that reversed their positions. 

When Stevens pulled back, it introduced an unacceptable amount of air between them, but then there were long fingers with odd calluses wrapped around their cocks, working. He looked wrung-out, desperate, the arm propping him up shaking like it might buckle, mouth open on little moans and his eyelids fluttering. His breath brushed Jim's skin like warm cut-silk threads.

_Holding_ wasn't enough, somehow. Jim's hands were restless, as if it would make Stevens' strokes faster or supply that crucial sensory spike that would topple him over the edge.

It was Stevens who came first, in great, gasping spurts. He never stopped moving, and their joint thrusts spread come all over Jim's chest. Jim's stomach twitched at the excruciating definition of sensation. He'd swear he felt every drop of come land, dialled all the way up.

Jim could hardly distinguish orgasm from zoning, his mind so full of input he couldn't interpret any of it, couldn't have said whether or not he moved or spoke or saw. Whiteout.

He snapped out of it finally when Stevens shifted, considerately collapsing next to and not on top of Jim, and coincidentally reducing Jim's sensory input from red-line levels to merely overpowering.

"Wow."

Jim's slowly re-emerging rationality distantly agreed. He stared up at the sky, where grey clouds were steadily moving in from the south. Inhaling deeply, Jim got another lungful of pheromones, but also barometric pressure and relative humidity.

He rolled onto his side and searched Stevens' face. Stevens turned his head to meet Jim's eyes.

"Rain coming," Jim managed at last, although it was nowhere near relevant.

Stevens closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Jim shivered.

"Yeah." He opened his eyes again, still dilated. "Wanna go someplace and...talk?"

Jim pinned Stevens up against a tree at the edge of the lake-side clearing where his trailer was parked and kissed him again. Stevens' hands gripped his shoulders as he kissed back and kept them connected even as they stumbled out of the woods.

They took turns tripping the same way they had all the way through the forest, but no one ever quite went down. Distantly, Jim wondered if that was practice on Stevens' part. It was probably luck that it was Jim's back that hit the trailer, because then the guy who knew where the door was, was free to drag Jim towards it. A brief change in the wind blew wood smoke into his face, but then the door was clanging shut behind their tangled, upwards footsteps and Jim found his hands diving for buttons again.

Jim's shirt had been sacrificed in the name of clean-up, because not even a hormonally-induced fugue state could make Jim voluntarily walk around with that sort of mess on him, not to mention the downright unpleasant prospect of sticking like that. There was still Stevens' to deal with, again, in addition to their inexplicable, constricting, and inconvenient jeans.

Jim made a sound in his throat when he stripped off Stevens' already sort of mauled clothing, kissed him deep, and jumped back to get his fly back open in the shortest time possible. He smelled even better now, sweating, turned on, and marked with Jim's scent.

It was Stevens who tackled Jim to the narrow bed. Miraculously, they were both naked, and a noise like a rising growl tore itself from Jim's throat as Stevens' movements dragged his body across Jim's screaming nerve endings.

Jim flipped them over, banging his shoulder off the wall. He wasted no time in taking hold of Stevens' cock and stroking; but his kisses lost their focus, slipping from Stevens' mouth to his jaw, then his neck and on down his chest to where his hand was working.

There, Jim hesitated, panting over the head of Stevens' cock, looking up at Stevens panting down at him. There was no denying that something in Jim _wanted_ that cock in his mouth. Oral sex with a woman was almost expected, but a lot of women he'd known baulked at going down on a man. On the other hand, blow-jobs were flat-out fantastic.

Experimentally, Jim darted his tongue out to lick the head. The sky didn't fall in. It was hardly a taste at all, Jim's senses assaulting him with a flood of information, the way when he inhaled this close to Stevens' body he didn't smell; he just responded. 

Stevens made a noise of male ecstasy when Jim's mouth closed on his dick. Jim was licking more than sucking, but turning Stevens into a moaning heap was satisfying on a very basic level.

Jim dropped down to lick Stevens' balls, taking hold of his hips to still them. Stevens' thighs tensed and flexed with his feet drawing up to give them leverage. It meant better access, too, and Jim continued drawing his tongue across hot skin.

Stevens shuddered, his breathing not only loud but palpable, bringing his stomach in and out of contact with Jim's gripping hands. His balls were heavy on Jim's lips and tongue. The skin behind them was rich with sweat and musk. And further back, drawing a short, startled sound from Stevens with just a lick across his hole.

Jim licked again and licked in circles, licked _in_ to the urging of Stevens' shameless moans. They drowned out the first _clink_ of raindrops on the trailer's tin roof.

The muscle yielded by degrees; but it was still so, so tight. The urge to just shove his dick inside slammed Jim with a sudden ferocity. Goddamn, he was so, so hard.

Jim groaned, thrusting his tongue more insistently. Stevens, who had been gripping the sheets as hard as Jim was his hips, pried loose first one of his own hands, then one of Jim's.

Jim allowed his hand to be dragged up Stevens' body to his mouth. Just a fingertip inside felt fantastic. Stevens sucked in one, then two, teasing infuriatingly with lips, tongue, and teeth.

More teeth, nipping, and Stevens' voice as Jim's fingers slid out of that _mouth_.

"—ide me, c'mon, please, Jim, do it."

Jim _growled_ when he got the message. Stevens arched up off the bed, probably cussing up a storm when he pushed both sloppy-wet fingers in, fast. Even if he'd known a lot more about this, Jim's brain probably wasn't up to a whole lot of finesse. He fucked Stevens with his fingers the way he wanted to with his cock. Stevens gasped and squirmed, and Jim scraped his teeth over balls and dick, tired of being gentle while he was still humping the mattress.

Frustrated, Jim started curling his hands into fists, only it made Stevens' cock jerk and squirt precome and one of them made a sound like a caveman. Stevens yanked Jim up, away from his continued explorations, causing his fingers to slip out.

The condom made him shudder and jump. Something cold and slippery was being rubbed all over Jim's cock, but then Stevens was spreading his legs even more and whispering hoarse encouragements into Jim's ear.

By that point, Jim hardly needed to be told. _God_. The way it was like he could feel every individual skin cell sliding inside was probably the only reason he didn't slam in like the plunger on a detonator.

The heat was like a sauna, and the pressure—Jim didn't realise for a long moment that he was flexing his fingers rhythmically into Stevens' hips and biting up and down Stevens' neck until his dick had adjusted—unbelievably intense. Stevens moaned, like a full-body vibrator; Jim shifted again helplessly.

It was insane, not to mention embarrassing, that Jim couldn't even get it together for some real thrusting. He just kept grinding in in response to Stevens' little jerks and twitches. It built up slowly, until their bodies finally matched the mindless desperation rattling around inside Jim's head.

Stevens rose to meet him, welcoming in spite of how violent this was, harder than he'd ever fucked anyone in his life. But Stevens wrapped his long, muscular legs around Jim's waist; and one of his his arms slid up to hook around Jim's shoulder while the other braced itself on the trailer wall.

Time had ceased to have any meaning. There was nothing in the world but Stevens' internal muscles squeezing. Jim slid in and out past their slicked textures, grazing a raised bundle of nerves deep inside.

Stevens rocked desperately. He made sounds in his chest, and he smelled _fantastic_. Jim gave up worrying the skin around his neck and shoulder to take Stevens' cock in a sweaty grip. Both at once plus all the hip action was way too much to process.

Stevens' orgasm was so overwhelming, Jim almost didn't notice his own. He moaned, shook, squeezed inside and out, come spattering hot and wet on Jim's skin, which was basically one big, raw nerve ending. Jim held on while he lost it, and kept holding on. He wasn't sure letting go was in his future. Or moving. Or thinking, ever again.

They slept after that, to the flat clatter of raindrops on tin. When they woke, the noise was thunderous. They rutted against each other in the dark outside, letting the storm wash them clean.

Even sleeping on top of each other, there was barely enough room for both of them on the narrow bed. When they woke up, their bodies were already shifting against each other, morning wood a step ahead of them both. This time, Jim kept a hold of his brain enough to not choke Stevens when he went down, even though Stevens kept getting explorative and creative down there.

 

The pheromones faded out sometime the next day, although it made less difference than Jim would have thought. His mind cleared, but Stevens lost none of his unexpected attraction. On balance, Jim was more relieved than otherwise. 

Somewhat shamefaced at letting himself get so carried away again, Jim snuck back to the hotel wearing a borrowed shirt to check in with Blair. After he'd busted Jim's chops for running off without giving him a head's up— _geez, Sandburg, it's not like I'm your daughter_ —and leaving him to wrap up case details with Officer Semanski, he'd shown signs of wanting to venture into other topics. 

That was where Jim firmly put his foot down. He did, however, magnanimously extend Blair the courtesy of telling him before he went back out to meet Stevens after dinner. 

Driving out of town the next day in the terrible rental truck, Blair kept sneaking glances at him. Jim rolled his eyes but couldn't sustain real irritation.

"Go on, spit it out."

Blair raised his hands placatingly. "Hey. It's just good to see you enjoying yourself for once, man." He turned to look out the open window at the dense, cool forest that closed in around the road. "You know, it's kind of nice up here."

"No Wonder Burger," Jim said. But he hung his free arm out the window and breathed in the clear, crisp air as on the radio a song ended. 

_"And so it goes on the albums of our lives. One track ends and another begins. And you know, no two recordings are ever the same. But sometimes if we're lucky, we get a reprise. Hey, you never know. Just something to think about, folks."_

The next song started with a trumpet, and Jim's lips stretched into a private little smile as Louis Armstrong rumbled out the first notes of a familiar melody. Stevens didn't have a phone in his trailer, but Jim had his address at a PO box in town. He wasn't much of a letter-writer, but maybe he'd write.

**Author's Note:**

> At one point in development, this was going to be part of a larger crossover universe incorporating several other 90s shows including due South and Highlander, working title: The Great Gay North. I also had vague plans for a long-distance epistolary sequel.


End file.
